


One Hour at A Time

by quicksilverlaith (quicksilvermalec)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Coma, DON'T WORRY NOBODY DIES, Don't Like Don't Read, Don't Like Don't Read AND DON'T JUDGE, First Person, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Getting Together, Injury, Internalized Homophobia, Klance is cute, Laith is the superior ship name, Lion-Switching Never Happened, M/M, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, POV First Person, all the cuteness at the end, ambiguous pov, at least at the beginning, but only mentioned, fight me, hour-by-hour, it's right there - Freeform, just hit that back button, keith and lance, not super prominent, that's the whole point, this is gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-06 15:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18854248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilvermalec/pseuds/quicksilverlaith
Summary: The first hour is like silence in my brain.People move around me in a flurry of activity, but I stay frozen, a fixed point in the center of the chaos.I sit and wait for him to wake up.He doesn't.***Someone gets hurt, and someone else is waiting for him when he gets better.





	One Hour at A Time

**Author's Note:**

> I LOVE THIS FIC SO MUCH!!!
> 
> This was a prompt fill for "write a story that's told over the course of a day, one hour at a time." Obviously, because I'm me, my brain went immediately to ANGST ANGST ANGST and since that sounded like a total someone's-in-a-coma-and-the-other-guy-is-waiting-for-him fic, I wrote this.
> 
> It spiraled a little out of control, but I am so proud of it anyway, and I hope you'll love it as much as I do.

_Hour 1_

The first hour is like silence in my brain. People move around me in a flurry of activity, bringing him in, dragging him to a healing pod, checking and double-checking and triple-checking his vitals, but I stay frozen, a fixed point in the center of the chaos.

Matt and Shiro are close behind whoever - I think it's Coran and Allura but I can't be sure - is putting him in the containment unit. They come to me and ask me about his condition, and they sit silently by my side as I wait.

It's as if I'm watching it all happen from the other side of a wall of glass; I see everything that's happening. I know what's going on. I understand what it means. But it doesn't quite reach me, it doesn't quite penetrate my armor. I don't move, and I don't speak. I don't think I have it in me.

I sit and wait for him to wake up.

He doesn't.

I don't see Pidge or Hunk.

And now it's 02:00 hours.

 

_Hour 2_

The second hour, it's as if my emotions are a leaky faucet. I feel some of them in random bursts, but I'm mostly just numb.

Shiro tells me that he thinks I'm in shock. I honestly could give a fuck.

I'm sad and worried and terrified in turns, and then I'm blank. Everything happens in fits and starts, like it doesn't quite have enough energy to develop a rhythm of movement. Kind of like me.

I still don't see Pidge or Hunk.

I sit in front of his pod but I don't look at it. I'm facing the door, waiting for someone - Matt or Coran or Pidge or Allura or Shiro or Hunk or somebody,  _anybody_ \- to walk through it, to remind me that I don't have to do it on my own. But nobody does, and it's almost as soul-crushing as his expressionless face in his glass isolation chamber.

I'm just waiting for a change. By the end of the hour, it comes, in the form of a diagnosis. He's healing, albeit slowly, but he's in a coma, and they're not sure when (but when they tell me, I know they really mean  _if)_ he'll wake up.

I'm don't think I'm in shock anymore.

It's 03:00 hours.

 

_Hour 3_

The third hour is different. I'm not dead to the world or in complete and total denial anymore. No, now I'm just fucking angry.

I'm pissed off at Coran for forgetting to lock down the exits and check the perimeter. I'm pissed off at  _him_ for thinking he could just disappear, for trying to leave like that without telling me. But mostly, I'm just pissed off at myself, because I should've seen it coming. I should've gone to him, I should've talked to him, I should've...

I could've helped. I could've saved him.

I want to scream and cry and destroy things. I can't go to the training room because this is still so raw - I'm not emotionally recovered enough to leave SicBay yet - so I don't have anything to break. Instead I alternately ball my hands into fists of untapped rage, digging my fingernails into my palm hard enough to draw blood, and tear at my hair in animal anger.

Shiro comes in to check on me. "You okay?" he asks concernedly.

He's here. He's another person, an unaccounted-for variable, and he's here, so I release my pent-up feelings at him. "No Shiro I'm  _not_ okay! He's in a coma, he could be absolutely fucking brain-dead for all we know and I'm just absolutely falling apart out here waiting for him to wake up and I could've saved him and I need him to come back! I need him!"

Shiro doesn't seem to know what do do with that, so he looks at me sadly and backs out of the room.

I saw something on the Internet once about an emotion regulation technique. _Dear Me From the Past_ ; the idea of writing letters or making videos or using some other medium to tell your past self what to do - or what  _not_ to do.

So I start to speak out loud.

"Dear me from zero-hundred hours Pacific Standard Earth time on the day of March 16th, 2019. Get in your lion. Get out there and find him. Don't let him go alone, don't let him leave. Don't let him." I let out a broken, choked sob, and then the room is stiflingly quiet again, and I hate it.

I still don't see Hunk or Pidge.

04:00 hours.

 

_Hour 4_

In the fourth hour, something in his condition changes, although hell if I could tell you what. His heart starts to beat altogether too fast and his vitals are all over the map. He seizes violently in the containment unit as I watch, helpless, no idea what to do.

When he finally stops shaking, still unconscious, I fall to my knees in front of him, no longer possessing of the strength required to be able to stand. My shoulders shake with silent, repressed sobs as I mentally berate myself yet again for failing him - yet again.

For an amount of time unknown to me, I stay there, on my hands and knees, with his unmoving body suspended above me, face impassive.

Finally, I manage to grab onto something and gain some leverage to haul myself to my feet.

I tap the interface screen, bracing myself for bad news. And it's a good thing I did, too, because this seizure has set his recovery back by approximately two phoebs, according to the monitor.

I sink back to the floor and sigh, sitting with my back to the pod, facing the door. I just don't seem to have the energy to have emotions anymore.

I silently will - no,  _dare_ is much closer to it - someone to walk through the door to SicBay.

No one does.

When I woke up last night (oh, god, it was technically last night), I was tired, groggy, and cranky. I just wanted to get back into my soft bed and stay there until at least 9 am, Earth-time. But now, I'm as awake as I would be in combat.

I become vaguely aware of the fact that I'm still in my pajamas. If they ever show up, Pidge and Hunk will fix that real fast.

I don't see anyone at all besides him the entire hour, and he doesn't count because he's unconscious and not a great conversationalist inside that pod.

Hunk and Pidge should be here. They should be here. I'm beginning to become slightly frustrated with them.

I sigh and slump lower against the cold, curved glass.

It's 05:00 hours.

 

_Hour 5_

In the fifth hour, I pray. That's how desperate the situation is. I don't pray very often because I don't put that much stock into the faith but I grew up very Catholic and so sometimes I lapse, sometimes I pray when I just don't know what else to do.

 _Please,_ I whisper into the cold, unforgiving depths of space.  _Please just bring him back to me. If there is any higher power, anybody who might be listening to me, just don't let him die. I've wasted so much time. If he wakes up from this, I won't waste any more._

I don't see Pidge or Hunk.

I press my face against the cool glass of his healing pod and cry.

I just cry until 06:00.

 

_Hour 6_

I'm in love with him.

It's a little sad, if I'm being perfectly honest (which doesn't happen very often), that it took these extremes for me to accept it. Goddamn internalized homophobia.

I love him so much that I don't know what I'd do if he disappeared. I love him so much that it physically hurts, like an ache in my chest, slowly killing me in the most pleasurable way possible. He's kind and beautiful and guarded and he's different than anybody else that I've ever met in my life and I love him. I just love him.

I need him to wake up. I need him to wake up so that I can hold him and kiss him and tell him that I love him and hear his genuine response, even if it's rejection. I can't live a life that doesn't have him in it because he's been a constant presence in my life for so long that I've forgotten what that feels like.

And I'm in love with him.

I look up at his face. It's paler than usual. His eyes are closed, his face expressionless. It's like he's dead. He's far enough out of my reach that I suppose he might as well be.

I miss him.

I miss fighting with him and sparring with him and flying with him. I miss our dumb competitions over things that don't matter. I miss our friendship and our banter and the way we work together.

I want him to come back.

I don't see Hunk or Pidge.

And by now it's 07:00.

 

_Hour 7_

I swear I wasn't tired. I don't remember being tired at all, only sitting with him and being hyperaware of everything around me, but for the seventh hour, I sleep.

I don't even realize that I've been asleep until I wake up, my head resting at an awkward angle against the base of the healing pod. There's a red blanket draped over me. Shiro must have brought it in.

I wake up late in the seventh hour, and I only stay a wake for a few minutes before sleep swallows me again.

But then it's 08:00.

 

_Hour 8_

In the eighth hour, I sleep some more, but this time I dream.

It's an utter nightmare. I relive the experience I had nine hours ago, the incident that put him in the healing pod in the first place.

/~\/~\/~\

The reading on the digital clock sitting next to Lance's bed changed from 23:59 to 00:00 PST.

As if on cue, all the alarms in the Castle of Lions went off suddenly, a high shrill whistle, waking all the residents.

The Paladins didn't need Coran's PA announcement requesting their presence in the control room - they were already there.

"The hell is going on here?" Lance demanded gruffly, angry at being awakened so early and still wearing his pajama bottoms and no shirt.

"Lance, please," Shiro chastised gently. "There's no need for that kind of language around the baby." He gesture toward the Green Lion Paladin, whose hair was mussed and whose glasses were askew.

"Yeah, Lance, what the fuck?" Pidge asked.

Lance stared at them for a second, then shook himself and said, "not the point. Why are the alarms going off?"

Coran pointed to the huge flashing ALERT sign on the view screen. "It appears that we have a perimeter breach, which I would understand under other circumstances but there is no sign of any hostile - there are only four of you. Where's Number 2?"

The Paladins looked around in surprise. It was true. Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, and Lance were all in the control room, but Keith was notably absent.

"Fuck!" Lance shouted, turning to run out of the control room. It wasn't until he was already tearing out into the night that he realized he was still shirtless.

Because he knew what was going on. How could he not? What else could it possibly be, in all rationality? A perimeter breach that just happened to coincide with Keith's conspicuous disappearance? Not likely.

Nobody was trying to get in. The Red Lion Paladin was trying to get  _out_.

Lance chased him. He sprinted toward the perimeter block Coran had indicated on the diagram, and there Keith stood, bayard in hand, a packed bag on one shoulder, staring down into the seemingly bottomless ravine he was teetering on the edge of.

When he heard Lance's footsteps approaching behind him, he whirled a 180 to stare at him. "Lance," he called out hoarsely. He obviously hadn't been counting on the intrusion. "What..." his face fell unexpectedly. "What are you doing here?" he asked softly, so softly that Lance almost couldn't hear.

"I'm not about to just give up on you," Lance replied evenly, as if it were obvious. "You're my friend."

The words pulled at his heart to say, but he ignored the feeling. Keith was the most important thing right now, and he looked unbearably sad. "It doesn't matter if _you_ give up." His voice was hollow and hopeless. "I already did."

Lance's heart plunged into his stomach and he took a step forward to try and reach him. Keith matched him with a step back.

"Keith-" he tried to warn, but Keith had already disappeared, his foot slipping off the edge as he fell almost a mile, his lifeless body glancing off of a natural rock formation on the way down.

He was admitted to SicBay for a concussion, bruised lung, four broken bones including his right ulna, possible blockage of blood to the brain, and, of course, the face that it took the Paladins almost an hour after he fell to find him.

And also that he wasn't breathing.

And then Lance was in the room with Keith and his eyes flew open in the healing pod and he was screaming out in a voice that wasn't his own. "Lance... Lance... Lance."

/~\/~\/~\

"Lance!"

I shoot straight up. Pidge is shaking me awake. I'm so mad at them and Hunk (who is standing behind them and watching me so worriedly) for not being here, but I'm also going into absolute hysteria from my nightmare so I hug them. I pull them down onto me and sob into their light green sleep shirt.

She sighs sadly and smiles into my hair. "Lance, it's currently 9 am in California. You've been here for eight hours, come on. You need to at least eat.

I finally found Hunk and Pidge.

It's 09:00.

 

_Hour 9_

I still don't have quite enough energy to leave, so I sit there with Pidge and Hunk and I tell them about my dream.

I tell them that I'm angry, and sad, and completely terrified. I admit to them that I'm in love with Keith (although I'd be willing to put money on them already knowing that) and that if he doesn't wake up I don't know what I'll do with myself. They listen like good friends, and nod sympathetically. They don't tell me their own concerns, because they know I'd just pull those onto myself as well.

At some point Shiro comes in and smiles at me as he moves over to the healing pod. He checks Keith's vitals with an impressive poker face before he turns to me.

He hugs me tightly for a long moment, and when he pulls away from me he says, "when he wakes up, you'll tell him, right? Please. He needs to hear it." I'm surprised by that, but he doesn't elaborate, he just leaves.

So we sit in silence for a while. Having other people there with me helps me refrain from spiraling into total anxiety.

They trade off, so that somebody is always hugging me. At some point I doze off against Hunk's broad chest, but only for about a quarter varga.

I don't see Matt or Allura.

!0:00.

 

_Hour 10_

Pidge leaves for a few minutes with Hunk, and when they come back in, Pidge grabs my left elbow and Hunk takes my right shoulder.

They haul me to my feet and drag me - quite literally  _drag_ me - out of the SicBay and into my own quarters. Pidge tosses a towel that they produced from nowhere at me - which I catch, in a moment of pure surprised instinct - and tells me, "Hunk and I are standing guard out here. You are not going to leave until you've showered."

I sigh, but I can tell they're serious, so I don't argue with them. I go into my bathroom and I shower. I stand in the bathtub and I feel the sensation of the hot water pounding on my skin. I wash my body and my tangled, matted, and dirty hair.

And when I come out of the bathroom, I dress in all black and my green-brown and orange jacket. Pidge gives me a look as I join them in the hallway, a look that reads,  _don't dress like you're mourning him, he's not fucking dead_ , but doesn't say anything out loud, so I don't mention it. The shower cleared my head a little, but not all that much.

They lead me into the kitchen and Hunk surprises me with a total buffet on the marble counter - a decent-sized slab of steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, and honest-to-god root beer from Earth. They really pulled out all the stops.

"You need to eat," Hunk tells me firmly, so I do.

After I've cleaned the plate, while Hunk does the dishes, I sit on the counter and kick my heels against the cupboards and confess to them that I had felt angry and a little bit let down by their late arrival.

Pidge's lower lip trembles and they wrap their arms around my torso, hugging me with all the strength they have in their almost-nonexistent upper body. "We were trying to save him," they whisper to me, but doesn't elaborate. It's okay, though. I don't need them to. They wouldn't make excuses - if they weren't there, it was for a reason, and knowing that they were probably out in the garage for those eight hours trying to find the scientific answer to healing him faster makes it all better.

I hug the both of them.

It's 11:00.

 

_Hour 11_

I'm spiraling again.

I told everyone that I'd be fine, but being in that room with his inanimate corpse is making me nearly insane.

I slam my fists against the glass and I scream and I sob his name, and even to my own ears my voice sounds miserable - broken, choked, like it's tearing out of my throat.

"Keith!" I yell. "Keith, come back! I'm in love with you! Can you fucking hear me, you asshole? I love you! I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you..." I scream until my voice is hoarse and I'm crying so hard that I wouldn't have been able to speak anymore anyway, and then I sink slowly to the floor, basically hugging the pod.

I almost fall asleep again, but I can't let myself, because I would absolutely never forgive myself if he woke up and I wasn't conscious.

Instead, I indulge myself in fantasies of Keith loving me back.

I imagine telling him how I feel about him, and all his perfect flaws, and I imagine his sweet little side-smile as he looks at me and replies, "me too."

Then I'd kiss him, and he'd kiss back, and I could do all the things I've always wanted to do to him - twist my fingers in his stupid mullet that I secretly love, bite at his bottom lip, bury my face in his neck. I'd just be there with him, and hold him, and love him in the beautiful, amazing, painful way that I do, like he's a drug. He's a drug I'd sacrifice everything for, for just one more hit.

But none of that will happen if I can't get him out of this goddamn healing pod. I can't have that if he doesn't wake up, so for the time being I'm stuck with my melancholy brooding and half-assed 'what if's.

He's as silent as the grave.

It's 12:00 hours.

 

_Hour 12_

The first half to three-quarters of the twelfth hour are pretty quiet. People are in and out. Shiro asks me how I'm doing again, and this time I'm nicer about it. I just tell him that I'm scared, and he looks at me gravely and replies that he knows and he is too. Pidge and Matt are being a little clingy (especially Matt, having now experienced firsthand the dangers of their job) and that makes me sad all over again for a totally different reason. I miss my siblings. Hunk sits with me for a while, but then he goes to prepare lunch for everybody else, so I'm alone when it happens.

A series of urgent beeps comes from his vitals monitor, and for a brief, terrifying moment, I'm afraid he's going into cardiac arrest or something. (Because I need that right now. Like a motherfucking hole in my head) But then I actually look at the readout.

Brain activity.

There's brain activity. He's still in the coma, but his neurons are firing and his mind is functioning and he's alive.

He's _alive_.

 _He's alive_.

I grin up at him, lying still in the healing pod. "That's my little fighter," I murmur affectionately.

He, of course, if he were here, would object to being referred to as my  _little_ fighter, but I could give a straight fuck. I'm taller than he is, anyway.

He's alive. He's been in a healing pod for half a day on Earth, and he's  _alive_. I could fly.

I'm totally ecstatic.

And by now it's 13:00.

 

_Hour 13_

After the brain activity thing, I give myself four hours of hope before I go back into complete functionless panic mode. (That is, of course, a one hundred percent arbitrary decision with absolutely no basis in science whatsoever.)

The thirteenth hour is mostly static anticipation. I can actually legitimately feel the energy of my own excitement in the air around me.

I sit in front of the pod, staring up at it a little creepily. I pace back and forth in front of it. I mutter to myself.

And I imagine him. I imagine us. I think about what it would feel like to be loved by him. I let myself pretend that there's some way he could ever feel the same.

I allow myself a little indulgent fantasy, and I wait.

He doesn't wake up.

14:00.

 

_Hour 14_

I suddenly feel overwhelmingly energetic. I'm almost happy, or probably about as close as I could get with the man I love in a life-draining coma.

I spend maybe half a varga sitting and watching him breathe silently. He looks almost peaceful; his eyes are gently closed, not squinted, his mouth is slightly parted, and his gorgeous black hair is resting on his shoulders.

In contrast to before, when I had no energy to leave, now I have too much energy to stay cooped up in here.

So I go out into the lounge and update Shiro, Pidge, Hunk, Allura, Matt, and Coran on his condition, even though there's not really very much to tell.

"He's stable, he's breathing. He hasn't really changed much."

"How are you holding up, Lance?: Shiro asks me, smiling with faint but genuine empathy.

"I'm okay," I tell him honestly, throwing my body onto one of the unoccupied couches. "I'm worried, of course, who wouldn't be, but I mean... I have hope now." Shiro sits forward, looking at me curiously.

"What changed?" he asks.

I'm sure I brighten visibly as I tell them about his brain activity. When I'm done, they watch me with expressions of mixed shock and awe.

Shiro hugs me, and Pidge and Allura follow suit.

I sit there, in that room, with these people who have become my family.

It's 15:00.

 

_Hour 15_

It's deceptively quiet for most of the fifteenth hour. But then, right at 15:40, everything changes.

His eyes snap open. The pod opens up and expels him. He's awake.

He falls right onto me and I catch him in my arms, though I'm immediately hit with an almost sickening sense of déjà vu as I realize that we're sort of mirroring the way I held Allura back on day 1.

I smile down at him, this stupid gorgeous dark-haired boy who's stolen my heart. "Morning, Kogane," I whisper. "Nice of you to join us."

He doesn't miss a beat. His right hand goes right up to the back of my neck as soon as he gains his footing and his left hand fists in my shirt. He pulls me down to his level and fits our mouths together roughly. His teeth drag against my lips and I whimper his name and then it's just over. He lets go of my shirt and avoids my eyes as he runs out of SicBay.

I stand there, completely shell-shocked, staring at the now-empty healing pod he's been sleeping in just a couple minutes ago.

Shiro runs in, followed closely by the others along with Romelle, who showed up at some point. I turn towards them slowly.

"Guys," I whisper reverently. "He's awake."

It's 16:00 hours.

 

_Hour 16_

Keith locked himself in his room, apparently.

After he kissed me abruptly and without warning in the medbay and ran out, he'd gone straight to his quarters and locked the door. Shiro reported having heard him cry (something I can't possibly imagine, not with his normally rock-hard exterior mask), but couldn't get him to open the door.

Pidge tries to get him out by bribing him with movie marathons and ice cream. Hunk tries to tempt him with Earth food. Shiro gives him a dad talk.

Needless to say, all attempts to get him out of his room fail.

So it's my turn.

But I don't know what I'm supposed to do, so I just sit there, cross-legged, on the cold metal floor and put my hand on the door and whisper his name helplessly.

I can't get through to him.

17:00.

 

_Hour 17_

I sit there for a long time. I want him to come out, to talk to me, to do _something_ to break the silence. I don't care if it's a song-and-dance routine from  _Dear Evan Hansen._

I have one thing I could say, but it feels so cruel, underhanded, and almost deceitful to employ that tactic now. However, when I look to Shiro for help, he gives me the go-ahead.  _Go for it_ , he mouths, somehow knowing exactly what I'm thinking. I give him a nod that means, 'get out of here' and he takes the hint.

I sigh and turn back to the metal door. I place my palm flat against the cool white surface and call timidly, "Keith?"

After a pause, there's his voice. "What, Lance?" he asks in reply, sounding totally resigned.

"I just..." I take a deep breath. "I just want you to know that I love you. I have, for a long time, actually. Ever since we were at the Garrison together."

There's a longer pause this time before he speaks. "I know," is his answer. "I could hear you. It was sort of like a dream, but not. I was in a glass box, and you were outside, and you were banging on the walls and begging me to come back, screaming that you loved me, that you couldn't live without me. It was absolute... torture, really. I couldn't answer you, I couldn't tell you..." He goes quiet for a second. "And I'm not oblivious. I've seen the way you look at me when you don't think anyone notices."

I'm stunned into silence this time. "Really?" I choke out.

There's no reply this time, but there's a series of clicks and then the door opens. He grabs my shoulder and pulls me inside.

I get a look at his alarm clock.

It's 18:00.

 

_Hour 18_

Keith sits on his bed and I stand in front of him.

"Lance," he whispers brokenly, like he has nothing else to say.

"What?" I ask, feeling my eyes burn with unshed tears. "Why are you avoiding me?"

He ducks his head to avoid looking at me. "Because I love you," he murmurs. "Because I can't have you."

I stare at him, but all I can think to say is, "why?"

"Because I won't let myself. I won't let myself be happy, I don't deserve it. I don't deserve  _you,_ Lance! You're so beautiful and so kind and so, so  _good_ , and I'm just... just Keith, the failure, the dropout, the loner. The only person I ever really allowed myself was Shiro. I don't belong anywhere, and I especially don't belong with you."

"So you're hurting me to protect me?" I ask incredulously. He nods ashamedly, still not meeting my eyes. I kneel in front of him. "I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, dumbass, but you don't get to be the one who makes that decision. I love you, and if you're not good for me, so be it. If loving you is a mistake, then it's a mistake that's mine to make. I do love you, so, so much, and you're not going to be able to stop me loving you if you hide from me."

Keith does look at me, then, and his eyes are darker than normal with what I can only describe as  _desire._

I kiss him and he kisses me back. We just push against each other in Keith's quarters.

And I'm so in love.

19:00.

 

_Hour 19_

I just kiss him.

I kiss him and kiss him until 20:00.

 

_Hour 20_

We're not kissing anymore. We've given that up in favor of sitting on his bed next to each other and just talking. We talk for a long while.

And cry. Mostly me, but Keith cries a little too. And we confess things.

At some point, after quite a long time talking about nothing, I look at him and whisper, "I missed you so much while you were out."

He rolls his eyes and replies, "it was fifteen hours, Lance!"

I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him into my body. "It was too long," I tell him.

We sit in silence for some time.

21:00.

 

_Hour 21_

"If you missed me so much while I was out, how did you ever survive my time with the Blade?" Keith asks me at some point during the twenty-first hour.

I sigh. I don't really want to get into the inner workings of my brain and my irrational emotion, but I will for Keith. "It was hard," I admit. "I was sad for a while, and pretty damn scared for you, but at least while you were with the Marmorans I knew you were safe, knew you were going to come back to us - to me. When you were under in that healing pod, I had no idea if you would ever wake up. I didn't know if I'd ever get to hear you laugh or see you smile or exchange insults like money with you ever again. That made it so much worse, in so many ways."

He looks at me without speaking for a long moment, searching my face for something, and then he leans forward and kisses me softly.

This kiss is different from all our other kisses. It's slower, softer, and sweeter, and so much less desperate, like we've finally realized we have our whole lives to do this. It's everything I've ever wanted to have with Keith.

I groan against his mouth and pull myself into his lap. He smiles into the kiss and murmurs a quiet "I love you" against my lips, and then he lets go of me.

I take his hand and hold it in both of my own, just to be touching him. He rolls his eyes like he thinks I'm being overly cheesy, but he can't hide his flush or his small smile, and I kiss his hand just to see his neck get redder.

22:00.

 

_Hour 22_

I should be tired. I really should. Of the twenty-two hours that I've been awake today, I've slept for approximately two. But I'm waiting for The Conversation™.

The dreaded conversation.

He and I are in the lounge now, with the others. We aren't kissing or being coupley, just acting like we're really good friends - which, in all fairness, we are.

It almost makes me believe that all the kissing and the love confessions and everything else from the last couple hours never happened - like they were a dream.

I've slung myself across an entire couch. Pidge and Hunk are next to my head, Matt, Romelle, and Allura are over by my feet, and Keith and Shiro are across the room from me.

I'm sure I look totally dejected, having convinced myself that I imagined all the love and ecstasy that I was feeling earlier, and I guarantee I've been staring longingly at Keith this whole time. I'm absolutely pathetic, and Pidge must have noticed it, because eventually they roll their eyes and sigh exasperatedly, glaring at Keith. "For quiznack's sake, would the two of you just kiss already?" they demand.

Keith looks at them in surprise, then at me. Then, smirking like the little shit he is, he stands up and crosses the room to me. He takes a knee and catches my lips in a kiss that's slow and passionate and breathtaking and hopefully one of the first of many more to come. I lose myself in it for the duration, scrabbling at his red half-jacket for purchase, trying to get him closer to me.

When he lets go of me, he's still flashing that infuriating smirk in my direction, so I chase him, kissing him again just to wipe it off his face.

Pidge applauds politely, obviously under the impression that that was our first kiss.

Keith turns to her. "You do realize that we spent like an hour and a half doing this earlier, right?"

Their jaw in on the floor, Hunk's hands are over his mouth, now _Shiro_ is the one smirking, and the other three are cheering wildly.

Keith pecks me on the lips again and walks out of the room.

23:00.

 

_Hour 23_

I go off after him.

And I ask him the question.

Well, okay, I sort of phrased it like a statement and I may have shouted it at him, but to be fair I was panicking.

"Be my boyfriend!" I yell at his back.

He turns to look at me, smiling, and says, "I thought I already was."

 

_Hour 24_

So we're officially dating.

It's 01:00 hours. Twenty-four hours ago, my idiot boyfriend did something stupid that landed him in a coma in a healing pod.

But right now, I'm ridiculously tired, so I wrap my arms around his shoulders and drag him to my quarters. I pull him into my bed and wrap my body around him, and I fall asleep spooning the man I love.

**Author's Note:**

> Who caught the Princess Bride reference? Comment!
> 
> Also, kudos please? Like, please please please??????


End file.
